golden girls and military missives
by lady lutka
Summary: They hide away and watch the world fall apart, he'll lug the guts and she'll stitch them all up (he settles with kissing her instead). militaryAU/ natsu&lucy/


inspired by having no fucking idea why I'm like this and maybe because I watched Dragon Cry and finally caught up to manga like, a week ago, and haven't written anything since.

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LiL PEEP / **praying to the sky** & **star shopping**

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 _one_

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He wakes to the cold.

It doesn't frighten him anymore, not how it used to. Two years is more than enough time to acclimate to the Arabian nights here, in the middle of fucking nowhere.

He doesn't really know what an Arabian Night is, but whatever. The new nurse would tell him, and if she didn't then maybe Gray would. If he didn't get shot first, of course.

"Dickhead."

"The fuck was that?"

He ignores Gray in favour of crawling beneath his military-issued bunk in search of his ID. There would be no food without it, and no food would mean certain death in war. Perhaps the lack of carbs would make him sluggish and privy to a bullet in the back of his head.

It's what he tells himself at least, to justify his own appetite. Back home he would have no qualms tearing into a six-course dinner. Here, it's rations or wither.

The fuck is he here for, anyway?

"War," Gray reminds, rolls his eyes furiously like he is possessed or schizo or some shit.

"Since when could you read minds?"

"I can't. Your brain can't handle you thinking too hard, so you talk aloud. Dumbass."

Any other time he would flatten that droopy-eyed idiot's face against a locker, but it's breakfast, and his ID is still fucking missing. Folks back home would say _it couldn't have just grown legs and walked away_. Here there's only dust and ash and unforgiving sergeants.

"Looking for this?"

He snatches the plastic from Gray, glares real big and walks away. "Prick."

"Asshole."

"Bastard."

"In-bred hick."

"Stripper."

"Oh, shi―"

He sprints before Titania can catch him with Gray and his half-nakedness because fuck that. Hell fucking nah is he getting involved with that shitshow. This whole war is a joke, add an infuriated Erza on top of that?

Didn't think so. At least he has the sense to keep his pants on, unlike that idiot.

"A-ah, Major, funny to see you here!"

" _Fullbuster, why aren't you in uniform_?"

He doesn't even bother hiding his wince at all the crashing and banging commencing in their room. Eucliffe whoops as he jogs past, military-issued boots kicking up sand and sweat.

"Dragneel, my boy! The fuck you been, man?"

"Around," he admits, recalls all the time spent in the infirmary for cut foreheads and bruised knuckles and swollen lips.

Sting shakes his head. "What were they thinking, putting you and Fullbuster in the same room?"

"Dunno."

He jogs off, stomach grumbling with each inch the sun rises. The cafeteria isn't too far away, thank the fucking lord, not like the last base where getting to the muck room consisted of training. Who puts the cafeteria and the dorms on opposite sides of a military base? The devil, that's who.

Anyway, he's hungry, and breakfast is the only meal that doesn't come from a pouch. The trick is to get in early, an advantage he refuses to share. The ID machine shrieks like a demon, all beeps and mechanical jargon. He winces when it screams its approval of his card, spits out a receipt. The trays at this point have been run through so many dishwasher cycles the military logos have all but flecked off. His still has half of the stamped F and half of their motto, something about a unified country and service to the people. It's all blabber to him.

Gajeel is the one scrambling eggs and flipping oatmeal pancakes this morning. The chef quit two months back, when they had just come back from the frontlines. Apparently they had the appetites of _monsters_ and they were _too rowdy_ and _damn right disgusting_. Whatever. At least Erza wasn't on duty with her green smoothies and quinoa porridge and tofu "scramble".

"This one is burnt, man," he calls, tosses it over the Bain-Marie and into the sink.

"Ungrateful shit!" Gajeel barks like some rowdy Doberman. "I haven't seen your ass in this kitchen once!"

"Can't cook, duh."

He leaves it at that and settles down to eat, drowning the pancakes in syrup and the eggs with chilli. It's an afterthought to douse everything with hot sauce because fuck the rules, apparently.

"Oh, god, what is that?!"

"Breakfast," he says around a mouthful of pancake, though it comes out sounding like a grunt.

"Gross," nurse-girl says, sets her tray down besides his. His nose scrunches at all the fruit on her pancakes, and her plain eggs.

"Back at ya," he says, shovels another load of eggy-pancakey mush into his mouth.

"It's healthy," Lucy says, and winds her long hair into a knot. "There's a new platoon coming in today for a stopover. They've got some wounded civs with them."

The news doesn't surprise him. "Where from?"

"Front lines," she says with a grimace, and he can only imagine all the blood and running to come once they arrive.

"Any kids?"

Her eyes meet his, and the silence says all the things they both refuse to admit. Keeping such things unsaid might make them cease to exist.

"So," she says a little too loudly, a little too pitched. "Did you check in with Erza today?"

He almost snorts milk. "You joking?"

Her smile is half disappointed, half tender. "We're going back to the front lines in a week. Alvarez have taken Hargeon.

"Fucking hell. I thought Mavis had it handled?"

"Obviously not."

He downs the rest of her coffee, a luxury only nurses are afforded. The shit for soldiers like him resembles tar and tastes of ichor, and he wouldn't be surprised if they ground up cockroaches and stuck them in coffee canisters.

"I need that more than you."

She is afforded a wicked grin. "Doubt it."

* * *

Well, he was fucking wrong.

"Natsu!" someone yells, and he winces as it echoes in the sterile clinic. "I need more blood bags!"

He grimaces but begins a fast-paced jog, almost knocks into a cluster of IV poles. Last he saw of Lucy she was covered in the blood of soldiers and civs alike, lips pursed and eyes grim. Only twenty of the fifty soldiers had survived, and even less of the civs. He recalls the bodies of a small family ̶ mum, dad and two kids. All brunette and brown eyed, now pasty and covered under a tent tarpaulin.

"Here," he says, dumps the cooler filled with precious O negative on the sink. The doctors ignore him, but one of the nurses flashes a tired smile.

"Thank you," she breathes, begins prepping the bags for transfusion.

He takes that as his cue to leave and is pulled by Sting into one of the donor rooms. His explanation is short, something about being low on the O. They both pull their sleeves up and stare at the ceiling.

"Hey, champ."

"Sup, Mira," he says, watches her insert the needle without wincing.

"We sure are lucky to have people like you around. The supply tunnels have been shut down," she reports. "Not like there's many donating right now anyway, but what can you do, you know?"

He hums his approval, dark eyes watching all the blood leaving his veins. It's a wonder that they'll even send him back, given the chances of a bullet entering his forehead and exiting his brain. Where would their blood bag go then?

To a cold grave, or a pyre. But that's a little fucking morbid, something that Fullbuster would say. Not him, not Natsu.

He almost misses Lucy rushing in with wild, tired eyes. "They need you, Mira," she says in a rush, pushes the nurse out of the way to take over the blood collection. "Now. Freed wants all hands on deck. I've got this."

"Thanks, Lu!"

"Everything okay?" Eucliffe asks like an idiot. Lucy's raised brow is all the answer he needs.

"You okay?" Natsu asks instead, hating the furrow of her brow but knowing there was nothing he could do.

"Better than my first month," she cracks, and he grins a little in recollection. Despite being an army nurse for three years, her first time on the front lines was during their worst stage of war. They had become fast friends after that, with her nursing his bullet grazed arm to one-hundred percent health in a week. The Heartfillia touch, she called it. He dubbed it a miracle.

"All done," she reports, and throws all four bags hastily into the fridge and runs out.

"That was quick," Eucliffe chuckles. "5-10. Not bad."

Natsu leaves him to his gloating, chases down Lucy instead.

"I really have to go, Natsu. Maybe later?"

He watches her with hard eyes, her quivering lips and glassy eyes a major tell. But he lets her go and save lives, keeps a careful eye on her the whole time.

* * *

They hide away and let the world fall apart while they lie in the warm sand. She uses him as a space heater, military sweats tight around her wide hips. He doesn't mind it, swallows her soapy scent and cherishes her softness.

"That was intense," she breathes into his chest, fiddles with the pocket there. Her fingers trace the _E_ 's in his last name and loop over the _N_ and _L._

"No surprises here."

She still smells a little like antiseptic despite the short shower, he like sweat and steel from all the iron he'd pumped despite her warnings to not do anything of the type. He didn't spring a leak, unlike Fullbuster who bled all over the training room floor like some little bitch.

"I'm scared," she admits, and lays her hand over the dragon inked on his shoulder, a proud chip. "I'm scared of what we'll see out there."

He massages the hip gripped in his calloused hand, pulls her leg tighter around his waist with the other. There are no words to soothe her, because what is there to say? It's war, not wrestling or whatever the fuck. There'll be life and death, blood and gore. He'll lug the guts and she'll stitch them all up. He settles with kissing her instead; sweet and gentle, nothing too brash lest they be found by prying eyes. She knocks over their thermos of nurse-coffee with her hip, lays atop him like a fleshy and squishy blanket. Chest to chest, corded muscle to ample breast.

"Promise me you'll be okay."

A soft breath, a mingling of tears. He wipes them all away and presses an open-mouthed kiss to the center of her lightly freckled forehead. "We'll be fine."

He doesn't promise, can only reassure her because making it a promise might kill them both. Golden girls and all their gilded oaths, he'll never understand.

"That's enough for me," she hums, chestnut eyes soaking in the starlight and reflecting them back at him.

He lets her doze off to sleep, carries her off to bed only once he's had his fill of Lucy. God knows when they'll be together again like this, with the infirmary filled and no bays free for them to tumble and cherish.

Gray is all no-questions-asked when he gets back to their dorm, and only throws him their official dispatch letter. "Straight to Hargeon this time."

He snorts derisively and balls up the letter. Did he expect anything less? "Of fucking course."

That night he dreams of nothing other than smiling blonde girls and cold, lonely fucking nights.

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 _tbc_


End file.
